Excess Death Trends

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Colleagues, more than nine of you wish to be called. Wind-ups will begin at 10.38 am, so I impose a voluntary time limit of three minutes each and I will try and get everybody in if I possibly can.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I am afraid that the evidence the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is basing his arguments on is highly controversial and strongly contested as to its reliability. I will shortly explain what I mean by that assertion.

I attended two meetings on the issue that the hon. Gentleman chaired, the latter of which, late last year, included a panel of “experts” who made presentations. I attended both meetings on the basis that I am aware that there are cases in which some people with underlying or pre-existing medical conditions were vaccinated inappropriately, in some cases with lethal consequences. I support the case for some form of restitution for them and their surviving families.

At the second meeting, I was alarmed that some of the evidence given was polemical rather than scientific. The nature of some of the expert presentations alarmed me—specifically, the misleading and inaccurate assertions, similar to those made, for example, by Andrew Wakefield on the measles, mumps and rubella scandal, which tried to make the link between vaccination and autism. That was thoroughly discredited subsequently, but the consequence of that, which is still being felt, is that children are not being vaccinated and there is now an upturn in the incidence of measles, in some cases with serious consequences.

The meeting I attended involved a number of “experts” who gave presentations that included data that I am frankly sceptical about. At that meeting, I undertook to raise my concerns about the accuracy of the data with the Office of National Statistics, and I have done so. In his response, Professor Sir Ian Diamond, the national statistician, said that he has undertaken to

“consider and investigate any possible misrepresentation of the data.”

I am grateful to Sir Ian for that undertaking.

In a report in The Times today, reference is made to a study published in The Lancet that said:

“Missed vaccines ‘caused 7,000 Covid hospitalisations and deaths’”—

that is missed covid vaccines.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. Ten seconds please.

[Sir George Howarth]

I am drawing to a close. By the way, that evidence involved 67 million people. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire quoted some research based on unreliable data, but that is a major undertaking published in The Lancet, and it makes completely the opposite point to his.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

This is a very important debate and I will try to make my speech as short as possible. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire on raising this issue and on his determination to highlight the challenges that we are facing. On the one hand, we might have expected that the pandemic would shorten the lives of a number of our more frail citizens and thus have expected a fall in deaths post-pandemic, and we saw that. The ONS reported roughly 608,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2020, 586,000 in 2021, and 577,000 in 2022—that was higher than 2019 when there were about 531,000 deaths, so that does warrant further inspection. We expect a fluctuation year on year, and we also expect the total number of deaths to increase year on year as the population increases and ages. We therefore look at the five-year average, and currently we are using 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 because of the outliers in 2020. Even then, it is unlikely that we will be exactly at the average, and we would expect some years to be higher or lower.

The ONS monthly mortality analysis shows that, in 2022, there were 32,000 more deaths than the five-year average, and in January to July 2023, there were 21,809 more. That equates to an annualised figure of around 37,000, but the figures appear to stop in July 2023. Would the Minister advise as to why the data series has been discontinued? It would be helpful if it were not. However, those are raw numbers and we must be cautious because, as the population ages and increases, so will the number of deaths. The ONS therefore uses the age-standard mortality rate, which has fluctuated month on month but is actually down for both 2022 and 2023 when compared with the five-year average. Overall, when adjusted for age and population size, the number of deaths is not excessive, given what we would expect.

We need to look further at the trends on age and the causes of death to see a fuller picture. Others will no doubt speak of rising cardiovascular disease in men, the late presentation of cancers or the rise in liver disease, but as a consultant paediatrician, I would like to focus on children. The National Child Mortality Database collates data on children’s deaths from nought to 18. Its latest bulletin from March 2023 shows that there were sadly 3,743 deaths to the end of that month, which is an increase of 8% on the previous year. Would the Minister comment on what investigation she is doing into the cause of that increased mortality and what is being done to prevent further deaths? The purpose of the child death overview panel is to investigate those deaths, but the average investigation is taking 392 days, with less than half completed in 12 months and a significant fall in the number being completed in 12 months. What is the Minister doing to improve that process?

One particularly distressing feature of child death data is that suicide or deliberate self-harm was a primary cause of death of children between 10 and 17 years, and looking at the data, it is getting much worse with children between 10 and 14. I understand that the Government are aware of those figures and are investing in mental health for children and improving online safety. I would be grateful if the Minister elaborated further on the steps they are taking to support children and prevent further tragedies.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Member is running out of time.

[Dr Johnson]

I will finish on this point. One reason why I get exasperated with the covid inquiry is that there seems to be too much focus on who said what to whom—did someone swear, did the actors like each other? I am not that interested. I want to know what lessons can be learned. Was lockdown useful? Was getting children out of school useful? Was the vaccine a suitable thing to give to children or not, particularly if they had had covid before? Those are the answers that we need.

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[Neale Hanvey]

I am not going to get into the detail of that; I have far too little time and too many important points to make. I have worked in the same institution as Professor Dalgleish, and his credentials are impeccable.

Addressing this matter is necessary because we are talking about the standards on which good clinical practice, or GCP, is based. GCP is not about a nice bedside manner or knowing what treatment to prescribe; it is a set of internationally recognised ethical and scientific requirements, which must be followed when designing, conducting, recording and reporting on clinical trials that involve people, and have their origin in the declaration of Helsinki.

The rights, safety and wellbeing of trial subjects are the most important consideration, which should prevail over interests of science and society, including commercial or political interests, and I will conclude with a reflection on that important principle. The foundation of good clinical practice is under threat. In their December 2023 pathology research and practice paper on gene-based covid-19 vaccines, Rhodes and Parry gave the following warning:

“Pandemic management requires societal coordination, global orchestration, respect for human rights and defence of ethical principles. Yet some approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by socioeconomic, corporate, and political interests, have undermined key pillars of ethical medical science.”

None of these clinical experts are quacks or conspiracy theorists. As the Government said so often during the pandemic, we must follow the science.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Colleagues have three minutes.

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[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) on securing this debate. It is important that Parliament considers all the available evidence. As you might expect, Sir Gary, I have to declare an interest: I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for radiotherapy. I am a supporter of Action Radiotherapy and an advocate for the Catch Up With Cancer campaign. The two issues that I will highlight are delayed access to cancer treatment and health inequalities.

Inequitable access to and availability of radiotherapy services are leaving the UK lagging behind other countries in cancer outcomes. That was true before the pandemic and it was amplified by the delayed diagnosis and treatment caused by the pandemic. I hope the Minister is well versed in the arguments, but I am always happy to meet if it would help to advance the cause of the campaign and promote the idea of accessing this cost-effective life-saving treatment.

There is no doubt that covid-19 impacted routine access to healthcare. It is little comfort to those protected from covid through cancellations and delays to routine services and treatment if the outcome for them is delayed cancer diagnosis, with the inevitable impact on prognosis and delayed treatment. I do not always agree with the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire, but never again can the whole NHS be subverted to deal with a single illness or condition, no matter what challenges we face. As other Members have highlighted, cancer is not the only condition affected in this way.

Health inequalities are also an important issue, and I hope the Minister is aware of a recent report by Professor Peter Goldblatt of University College London entitled “Health Inequalities, Lives Cut Short”. The report considered the life expectancy of people across England and Wales, and it is clear that those in the poorest areas suffer the worst health inequalities. Economic inequalities affect health outcomes, and my constituency is on the frontline of health inequalities. We have the worst rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the UK, the highest levels of obesity and the third highest rates of epilepsy. We are well above the national average for diabetes, heart failure, depression and dementia.

For me, this is political. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire said that this is not a political issue, but a public health issue—but public health is a political issue. In 2024, as in 1997, I expect it will once again fall to a Labour Government to begin the process of fixing the years of Tory neglect and mismanagement. For my constituents—the communities of east Durham—the general election cannot come quick enough.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

You were doing so well until that point. I call Miriam Cates.

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

I will be brief, because it is clear that there is far more demand to speak in the debate than there is time. That shows that we absolutely need a longer debate; we need a debate on the Floor of the House, because it is not just Members present who want to speak, and members of the public have shown enormous interest.

I will not go over the excellent points that have been made and the data that has been shared. We know we have a problem in this country with excess deaths, particularly among younger people and particularly from cardiovascular disease. That, in itself, is a huge challenge. We need medical experts and statisticians to address those issues—I am not qualified to do so.

What I will say is this: lockdown changed everything. Our response to covid changed everything. Just as we look back on different periods of history—before the war; before the industrial revolution—I believe we will look back at before and after lockdown. Lockdown has changed our economy and how we relate to each other. It has changed our health and our understanding of children’s development.

The conditions under which those decisions were made—decisions that were overwhelmingly wrong, in my opinion, although I do not blame any individuals, given the pressure they were under—have not changed. The conditions under which we suspended the precautionary principle, ignored the fact that interventions may cause harm, suspended the importance of children’s education, suspended the safeguarding of children, suspended the need for medical trials and suspended all sorts of safeguards that have stood society in good stead for a long time have not changed.

The conditions in Government, the media and wider society under which those decisions were made have not changed because, unfortunately, we have not yet got to the heart of the matter. Why did that pressure come from the media? Why did we have to follow what other countries were doing? Why were we obsessed with particular points of data, such as deaths from covid, rather than considering the wider impact on society?

My concern about the covid inquiry is that it is asking all the wrong questions. It is concerned with who swore at whom on WhatsApp, and not the wider conditions under which decisions were made. When, several Education Secretaries ago, the former, former, former Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), stood up in the House of Commons and said that he would close schools, I remember, as a mother, shouting at the television, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”. I could see the impact it would have—not just on my own children, but across all the wider components of society. Society is like a big machine; we cannot just take out one part and assume that the rest will continue to operate. We have seen that clearly over the past three years.

We must address the reasons why these decisions were made. We cannot do that in three minutes each—we must have a longer debate.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I remind colleagues that they have three minutes. I call Jim Shannon.

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[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree.

I do not understand why the supposed links between donors and PPE provision are worthy of investigation, yet excess deaths demonstrably linked to vaccines have not been deemed important enough for investigation. For me, there is a question to be answered. It seems a natural follow-on that the unprecedented steps taken should be held to the scrutiny of an investigation and that the points that have been raised are seemingly supported by medical evidence.

I am not a doctor and I do not profess to be, but the facts raised by the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire do call for scrutiny. Therefore, I support calls for an investigation. I have seen young men in my constituency struck down with unexplained cardiomyopathy before covid, and seen the heartache that the families deal with as they wonder why. There are many families at this time with similar questions. It could well be that the increase has nothing to do with the vaccine, but we must look into why fit young men, or fit, non-smoking, healthy-weight women in their 50s, are having heart attacks, and their consultants are asking them, “Which injection did you take?”

To me as an unlearned man, those are signals that there are questions to be asked, and there is an onus on our Government and our Minister, with great respect, to see that the questions raised by medical professionals and voiced by Members of this House are taken seriously and addressed. Not for one second do I claim to see the correlation, but enough people have warranted it, so I support the calls for an investigation and ask for one to be carried out.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Thank you. The voice of Cornwall, Derek Thomas.

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[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for securing and leading this debate.

Like many hon. Members, I have been concerned by the increasing trend in excess deaths in recent years, which includes deaths in the male population; indeed, there have been a higher number of excess deaths of men than of women, although all excess deaths are of course a tragedy.

According to the Government, from the start of the pandemic until 1 December 2023, there were 77,907 excess female deaths and 92,913 excess male deaths, the latter figure making up 54% of the total. However, once we delve into the data, we find that there are deeper differences. Between the ages of 25 and 64, the number of excess deaths for women was 12,579, while the number for men was 24,688, so nearly twice as many working-age men as working-age women have died unexpectedly since the pandemic.

Where is the research to find the underlying causes for these excess male deaths from conditions affecting the heart, diabetes and urinary disease? Where are the reports saying what we need to do to address these issues, both as a whole and in response to the nuances of particular figures? Who is looking into how this happened? In Government, which Minister, which Department, which corner of our expansive NHS, which think-tank and which Select Committee—either in the Commons or the Lords—is examining this issue?

The myriad external health and wellbeing-orientated bodies, whether they be quangos, non-governmental organisations or charities, have a plethora of experts, who are available across the state and in the various institutions that we have in this country. However, for some reason—maybe one that centres on an uncomfortable truth—no one who should be interested in the huge rise in excess deaths seems very interested in them at all. Is that a scandal? Perhaps; time will tell. However, the silence from the Secretary of State and the Ministers in her Department speak volumes, as does the silence from the civil servants at the Department. The silence from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is similarly underwhelming, and the silence from the health community at large is echoed by the silence from the royal colleges, as is the silence from Sir Chris Whitty and his colleagues. That is worrying, not just because we all know that if the gender figures were the other way round, there would be huge publicity and research, but because it seems that these figures, in general, are purposely being ignored. Is it because men in this age group are more affected? Do men not count as much?

Overall, there have been huge number of excess deaths from covid, and we do not know what the underlying causes are for a range of conditions. It is as if the health authorities and the Government do not want to talk about it. Have they something to hide? Do they know something we do not? Back in the dark days of the pandemic, there was a debate in the Chamber about vaccinating young people, perhaps mandatorily. Only two Opposition Members turned up to support the Government, and more than 40 of the Minister’s Government colleagues did not support the Government’s approach. In my speech I said that, with regard to the health of the youngest in society, we should do no harm.

Similarly, I am not proud of the Government for ignoring the higher excess deaths. I hope the Minister will announce investigations to ascertain why the ultimate harm of excess death numbers is rising, and how excess deaths might be tackled, for women and men of all ages. As an aside, it is commendable that the Government recently ensured that all schools have defibrillators, but to my mind, that raises more questions than it answers. Is this the next Post Office Horizon-type scandal? Time will tell. One suspects that the truth will eventually out.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

I call Dean Russell, but please sit down at 10.38 am.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for securing this debate. I will be brief, as I have a very specific point to make.

Losing a loved one can be a profoundly painful experience. In Hertfordshire, families are experiencing delays from the coroner due to the apparent increase in complicated deaths over a number of years. Although it is right to take time to do a full investigation, I am concerned about the lack of communication with families who have lost loved ones to update them about the reasons for the delays and set out what the timings will be. I am getting inquiries from families who are suffering and do not know what is happening and why there are delays, and that is feeding their concerns. Does the Minister agree that this only adds to families’ pain? They just want answers, and to know what is happening. Will the Minister please urge coroners, if they are not able to do the work, to at least communicate regularly, and provide updates, so that grieving families know what is happening and suffer less?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front Benchers. Will the Minister please give the mover of the motion at least two minutes to respond?

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[Abena Oppong-Asare]

These include high flu prevalence, a strep A outbreak, an increase—

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Abena, we have a point of order; I am so sorry. Philip, it had better be a point of order.

[Mr Hollobone]

Sir Gary, your chairmanship is superb. Will you confirm that it is normal in these debates that the Opposition spokesperson has up to 10 minutes to make their case? The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) therefore has just under five minutes left, which is plenty of time for interventions.

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[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

That is entirely a matter for the Opposition spokesman, but thank you for the point of order.

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

There is an increase in conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. As a number of Members have mentioned, the Government say that they are attempting to reduce excess deaths through more health checks, as part of their major conditions strategy. We in the Opposition welcome all efforts to improve the health of our country and tackle these issues, but we must have a Government who will build an NHS and a healthcare system that is there for the public when they need it.

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[Karl MᶜCartney]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady has indicated that she will not give way. Let us hear the end of this speech. Thank you.

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[Neale Hanvey]

The Minister knows as well as I do that the yellow card scheme sits at the heart of safe clinical care, but allegations are circulating that the MHRA is sitting on 50 times more yellow cards related to the covid-19 vaccine than those related to any other vaccine that have been reported to it. Will she commit to asking the MHRA to account for that and to taking urgent action if, indeed, it is sitting on the yellow card system reports?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Minister, please leave some time for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Maria Caulfield]

Thank you, Sir Gary, for reminding me that I have two minutes left.

I absolutely take the hon. Gentleman’s point. If people have concerns, I am more than happy to raise them with organisations or to provide hon. and right hon. Members with answers. Although we have had over 8,000 claims to the vaccine damage payment scheme so far, 4,000 of them have been rejected on the grounds of causation or not meeting the severity threshold, and 159 have been awarded—156 for the AZ vaccine, two for Pfizer and one for Moderna. As well as the information that the MHRA is collecting, we are analysing the vaccine damage payment scheme to keep constantly reviewing the safety of the vaccines.

We must be careful with the language we use. We have a measles outbreak at the moment that is affecting young children, with particularly high outbreaks in London and the west midlands. Thankfully, it is mild in most cases, but children can die or have long-term side effects, and there is a danger if we are not careful with the language we use. We should absolutely scrutinise the safety of vaccines, but we need to make sure that we are not deterring parents from coming forward. We nearly eradicated measles, and we are now seeing outbreaks because of concerns about vaccinations. Although we have concerns, we also have responsibilities.

I do not have much time left, so I will make one quick point. If clinicians and experts have concerns, we should point them to the funding that we have made available for the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Some £110 million has been allocated for covid-19 vaccine research, and I encourage them to make use of that fund to develop our knowledge further.

I reassure colleagues that we absolutely acknowledge that there is a risk of excess deaths. We are working towards how we reduce that as quickly as possible, but the lockdowns have had a negative effect in many cases. We are also mindful of the safety of vaccinations, and have taken action when safety concerns have been raised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) mentioned coronial delays. That is a matter for the Ministry of Justice, but if he wants to write to me with the details of his case, I would be happy to take it up with that Department.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire for bringing forward this issue. My door is open, and I am very happy to continue the discussion with him on it.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Andrew Bridgen will have the final say.

[Andrew Bridgen]

As it always should be, Sir Gary; your chairing of the debate has been excellent. I have been extremely impressed by the turnout, which is far in excess of my expectations. I congratulate all hon. and right hon. Members who have attended, especially those who have contributed, and I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), for their participation. Respectfully, I advise the Front-Bench spokespeople that not taking interventions will not fill colleagues or the wider public with confidence that they are being open and transparent. If we want to reassure people, they need to have confidence in us.

Clearly, time has been in short supply; three minutes for Back-Bench contributions was insufficient, and I hope that everyone present today, and those who have not been able to attend but who wanted to speak, would support an immediate call for a three-hour debate in the main Chamber. That would treat the whole issue of trends in excess deaths with the reverence, time and respect that our constituents demand and that we need in order to get to the absolute truth. I am saddened that I do not believe that this trend in excess deaths will stop any time soon; in fact, I think it will continue and that the concern from our constituents will only escalate.

The Minister talked about the elephant in the room: the vaccine harms. It is that bad, and it is going to get that bad, that apparently even the elephant in the room has died suddenly. The Minister could sort all this out if her Department were to tell the data holders to release the record-level data: the vaccine records, the vaccination data, the age of the vaccinated, what they were vaccinated with, and whether they have died or had a severe adverse event. That level of data would sort out this argument once and for all, and if—

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. We must move on to the next debate.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

P&O Ferries Redundancies

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Westminster Hall

4 pm

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

In a moment, I will call Ian Lavery to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond to the debate, but I think that in between the two Mr McDonald will make a very short speech. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in our 30-minute debates.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered lessons learned from redundancies at P&O Ferries.

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, with regard to my trade union membership. It is a pleasure, as always, to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Gary.

It is worth looking back at what actually happened to the 786 staff who were dismissed by P&O Ferries and DP World on 17 March 2022. We remember watching staff on the television who reported being sacked in a pre-recorded Zoom call, without prior warning or indeed any consultation whatsoever. P&O had callously prepared beforehand, recruiting handcuff-trained private security guards in balaclavas to frogmarch employees off the P&O vessels.

The P&O chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, admitted to the Transport Committee that the company had deliberately ignored the law and that some of the agency crew replacing those sacked would be paid below the minimum wage; and astonishingly, he said that the company would do it again, given the opportunity.